“Don’t let them do it! Don’t let them get to you!”
She’s very sophisticated, for five. That’s the thing about Thing Two.
Thing One, well, that’s another story.
If she weren’t so – if Nature hadn’t given her – I’m sorry, but, if she weren’t such a bitch. Then, maybe. But no.
It is what it is, and, until further notice, such as it is, such, it shall be.
Our big sister, see, she wants to be a schoolteacher, some day, and our fondest wish is to dissuade her from her folly. Besides, she’s no educator, she’s a torturess. This, we’ve not known, exactly, but we’ve long suspected. She’s evil, Thing One.
She needs to be destroyed, if possible. On this, we are one.
We’ve decided that the happiness of thousands, even, maybe, depends on this, potentially. On us, depends their future happiness. Lives will be saved.
So, what is our plan? See how it goes, but, first, and foremost: be ourselves, primarily.
She’s a big history buff, Thing One. She pores over maps. She memorizes dates. She lords it over us, with her apocrypha. She knows things.
She’s so self-righteous. She’s the bane of our existence. She’s got to go. On this, we are agreed.
“Pop quiz!” she announces, pulling out the the ‘tests’ she has printed up, on the Mongol hordes, and their sweep across the continent of Asia, hacking, burning, raping and pillaging – our favorite things. She knows this about us, but we’ve already decided her fate. This pathetic mitigation buys her nothing.
Quiz eh? We’ll see about that.
“Quisling!” we shout.
“No!!”
“Quisling! Quisling!!” we repeat. “Quisling! Quisling! Quisling!!” we iterate. It’s a happy dance. She knows, quisling, from quizzling. She knows the difference. This kind of thing makes her crazy. It’s the Burning Man, all over again.
Did we mention, she’s O.C.D.?
This kind of thing, really, burns her butt.
She’s told us this, a million times, if she’s told us once, more the fool, she. It’s the Summer Solstice, for us, and she’s ‘it’, Thing One.
Burn, baby, burn. We revel in it’s light. We warm ourselves in the dying embers, over and over again. Funny thing, it never gets old, but then, what do you want, we’re ten.
“Shut up! Shut uuuuuuup!!” she wails, and runs from the room.
“Quisling! Quisling!! Quisling! Quisling!!” we exult, and carry on, until we’re tired, but well before the crying stops, which we can still hear, from afar – from the living room.
“Stool pigeon,” we speculate.
“Narc,” we opine.
She’s telling mom all about it, no doubt. Poor baby.
“I tried to tell her,” laments Thing Two, sorrowfully, as she pockets her Tootsie Roll chocolate lollipops, from us.
She’s a good kid, Thing Two.
We think we’ll let her live. Maybe. Discuss.
~ Tim Burchfield
3/24/16

Synopsis: An ambitious daredevil makes a deal with the devil, so that he may become the greatest geo-politician in the world: his greatest stunt, to attempt, on a motorcycle, to jump over Donald Drumph’s hair. (He wants, at first, to attempt a leap over Donald Drumph’s ego, but, even at the feasibility phase of the project, unsurprisingly, that enterprise proves impossible.)
The devil gets his due, in a surprising twist, involving Donald’s new wife, Evelvira, and the Caliphate. It’s an all-singing, all dancing, beeping, flashing, soaring – and, needless to say, leaping – extravaganza.
(Virgins will be sacrificed, or their reasonable facsimiles, as, in Las Vegas, at least, none could be found.)
It’s proposed ‘working title’: Something Knievel This Way Comes…
Yes? No? Maybe? Comments not necessarily necessary. Send money.
~ Tim Burchfield
3/23/16

• forging titanium •
YouTube, ‘binge-watching’, blacksmiths, working steel.
There are, the ones,
that have done, a thing,
a thousand times,
and that’s real,
and that’s informative.

But the ones,
who venture,
into ‘the strange’,
and the unpredictable,
‘the unknown’, for them:
like the guy who wrought
a skinning knife,
out of a discarded gift
from a friend,
of an “unmanageable”,
bar –
(I like to think of it,
so as to more readily,
for my own amusement,
“relate”, to it,
which has been often used on me,
as “recalcitrant”.)
– of titanium,
when, he declaims,
“Man, oh man,
I hope this works,”
what a thrill!
Honestly, when he starts out,
he doesn’t even know
if he can “work” the stuff,
even though,
as he says,
he did do, presumably,
some peremptory “research”:
he, “Googled it”, I guess,
(Heaven knows, I’ve been there.)
and, learning,
as he goes along,
by trying it, I am caught, myself,
by me, ‘catching’ my breath,
and this doesn’t happen,
every day:
heating and hammering,
hammering and heating,
talking, and talking,
thinking aloud,
and, and all along,
letting me in –

“We’ll have to do some more scientific research on it.”

And,

“It gives off’, no scale,
but what’s this sand?”

And, gathering the stuff,
and holding it up to the camera,

(I fascinate over his crenelated fingers, and thumb, and wonder,
at the work he’s done,
and – go figure – too,
though I doubt it,
if his wife appreciates him.)

– puts it, this ‘mystery sand’,
in a jar, these finger-gatherings,
allowing, that,
“maybe (he) can find,”
something,
someday,
maybe,
“to use that for,”
after he’s done, he says,
“some more research, on it.”

Something is happening.
And, time is passing.
It’s all so familiar.
The searching.
Funnily,
I see me.

Hammering, hammering,
and heating, and cooling,
and re-heating, and, again, hammering, and re-cooling,
and talking, and talking.
And ‘normalizing’ the steel,
slowly, reverently,
to ‘honor’ the steel,
whatever that means.
And working, and sanding,
and wondering, aloud,
all along, inclusively,
as is his way,
seemingly, including me:
by the time he’s done,
with
hammering,
hammering,
from what he imagines –
forging discarded titanium,
into something real –
getting up to the heat,
what he wants,
and having got, as he allows,
at some point,
“this whole freaking mass,
up to melting temperature,”
with his titanium skinning knife,
he’s learned something,
and, I’ve missed it,
like a joke, you’d have to have been there, I guess, and yet,
my heart is pounding.
That internal anvil, in me,
is singing,
“What. Is. This!!?”

Subsequently, and
I love this, what he says,
at the end, of one:
(I’ve seen several, of his,
and, in my mind,
they tend to run together,
but what sticks, is this,)
when he says,
meaning nothing,
and all,
“It’s worth a try!”
~ Tim Burchfield
3/14/16

It goes with this thing I have,
where I don’t know
what to do with my face.
Somebody delivers to me,
some ‘factoid’,
usually, something traumatic,
Earth shattering,
and deeply personal,
and I’m like, “Oh, okay.”

Usually, it comes in situations
where someone really needs
to seek professional help,
and mistake that person for me.
I am not equipped
for such phrases, as,
“And how do you feel about that?”
So, I just say, “Uhm.”
And stand there,
uncomfortably.
~ Tim Burchfield
3/10/16

• rubik’s cube •
I want a Rubik’s Cube:
not a ‘knock-off’, but an original.
Rubik never got rich,
with his thingamajiggy,
but he made a lot of nudnick nerds happy –
like me –
and I find that trippy,
and fantastical,
bordering on hilarity.

Twenty seven moves
is all it ever takes
to solve a Rubik’s Cube conundrum,
or, so they say.
And he, like me,
yes, Rubik himself,
wanted nothing more,
than to figure the damn thing out,
without a key,
or someone (or something),
whispering in his ear,
“down two, and a left-hand twist,”
or whatever, to figure it out, yes –
get this –
to solve his own puzzle,
after creating the thing.

Can you believe it?
He imagined “the box”,
and struggled with rubber bands,
and bits of wood,
and finally,
after Herculean effort,
got it to get the whatsit,
to negotiate itself,
block-wise,
without exploding,
into it’s component parts,
and to show it’s color-assigned sides,
all color collaborated,
one happy day.

And,
got it to work to perfection,
and
with his architectural students,
to encourage,
intuitive problem solving,
within spacial relationships,
and, to teach that we, each of us,
have a genius
problem-solver within us,
he shared it,
to demonstrate –
and still, after all that,
Rubik himself, yes, he, too –
of how to get those
colored sides to meet up,
congruously,
he had no clue.

He had to figure it out,
on his own,
and finally did,
and what a feeling of accomplishment,
ensued.
I find that so wonderfully informing,
how ’bout you?

I am a nudnick’s nudnick,
in a nerdy sort of way:
I want the pleasure
of sorting things out, myself.
I don’t want unsolicited intervention: no unwanted help, for me.
I don’t want things, easy.
‘Easy-peasy’,
though, convenient –
involving far less hair-pulling,
and considerably fewer
expletives, and epithets,
and dancing about
one’s living room
shouting, and hating
all things, problematic,
in my underthings –
well, frankly –
holds not so much appeal for me,
as opposed to,
say,
the answer,
that comes,
like a flash,
after a healthy bout
involving abjectly
tearing one’s clothes,
and of rolling in ashes,
dejectedly –
after a week or so,
of heady heights,
and deep emotional plunges,
of gastronomical upheaval,
and sleepless nights,
and the casual course,
of course,
(it goes without saying,)
of flailing, and weeping,
and of feeling completely
fatuous,
and ridiculous,
when I finally see, what,
had I been able to see,
was all along,
a thing of utter simplicity.

Or, perhaps,
I exaggerate.
To do your own thing,
it’s fun,
is what I mean.
So, there’s that.

I don’t want perfect happiness,
I want the opportunity.
I want to sort it.
I want to wake up
wanting something,
or somewhere,
or someone,
so badly,
that it makes me want,
get out of bed, no leap!
and scramble into my clothes,
and start tearing, daily,
through the workshop of my mind,
from wanting –
but not before I’ve ‘dreamed’ –
on the thing,
or place,
or the lively, lovely someone,
and have visited the gratitude,
and satisfaction,
and sheer relishing,
of seeing
with my inner eye,
the sweetest path to take,
for exploration’s sake.

I want to have,
a love, a joy,
an exuberance for life,
from yearning,
for longing,
or not at all…

…or not,
as the case may be.
Hm…

Then, again,
I’m all for lunch,
about now,
it’s been a long day…
Was that, “down two,
and a twist to the left,”
did you say?
~ Tim Burchfield
3/7/16